John Solomon at TheHill is trying to deflect back to Biden re: Shokin. 2 threads I've put together..

[Roland99]

So, I’ve followed Sean Astin’s new political twitter handle and he posted a video of John Solomon of The Hill claiming to have Shokin under oath saying it was Biden who got him fired for looking into Burisma. This is utter bs and couldn’t be a more glaring example of fake news.

First. A bit on Solomon:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1177407927382085632.html?refreshed=yes

For one thing, Ukrainian prosecutors and anti-corruption advocates who were pushing for an investigation into the dealings of Burisma and its owner, Mykola Zlochevskiy, said the probe had been dormant long before Biden leveled his demand.
Why Was Ukraine's Top Prosecutor Fired? The Issue At The Heart Of The Dispute Gripping Washington
U.S. President Donald Trump asserts that Joe Biden pushed for the ouster of Ukraine’s chief prosecutor to quash a probe into a Burisma, a gas company with Biden's son on its board. Officials and ...

Why Was Ukraine's Top Prosecutor Fired? The Issue At The Heart Of The Dispute Gripping Washington
https://www.rferl.org/a/why-was-ukraine-top-prosecutor-fired-viktor-shokin/30181445.html

“There was no pressure from anyone from the United States" to close the case against Zlochevskiy, Vitaliy Kasko, who was a deputy prosecutor-general under Shokin...told Bloomberg News in May. "It was shelved by Ukrainian prosecutors in 2014 and through 2015”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Solomon_(political_commentator)
Paul McCleary, Columbia Journalism Review:Solomon had earned a reputation for hyping stories w/o solid foundation.Mariah Blake, Columbia Journalism Review: "has a history of bending the truth to his storyline," and he "was notorious for massaging facts to conjure phantom scandals

Erik Wemple of The Washington Post said that newsroom staffers at The Hill had complained about Solomon's reporting for the publication. The staffers reportedly criticized Solomon's reporting as having a conservative bias and missing important context, ...

and that this undermined The Hill's reputation. They also expressed concerns over Solomon's close relationship with Sean Hannity, whose TV show he appeared on more than a dozen times over a span of three months.

Now for the good stuff!


https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1177411494855761921.html?refreshed=yes

The facts behind Trump’s bogus accusations about Biden and Ukraine
Trump claims Biden threatened Ukraine to aid his son’s business interests. The facts suggest otherwise.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/23/20879611/joe-biden-hunter-biden-ukraine-corruption-prosecutor-burisma-donald-trump-whistleblower-complaint

Everyone in the Western community wanted Shokin sacked,” Anders Aslund, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, told the Wall Street Journal. “The whole G-7, the IMF, the EBRD, everybody was united that Shokin must go, the spokesman for this was Joe Biden

And this doozy of a thread

Link to tweet

Btw, Dmitry Firtash (the person mentioned in the affidavit of Shokin) has been defended by @realDonaldTrump lawyers

For White House, Ukraine revelations rooted in Chicago bribery case
https://abc7chicago.com/politics/for-white-house-ukraine-revelations-rooted-in-chicago-bribe-case/5569044/

(Adding this text I didn’t have in my tweets...easier here)

Wednesday, September 25, 2019 9:33PM
CHICAGO (WLS) -- Ukraine isn't just the venue of a U.S. presidential battle royal.

One of the Eastern European nation's wealthiest power brokers has been at the center of a blockbuster legal case in Chicago. Now, in what may be considered peculiar timing, one of President Donald Trump's most trusted attorney-advisers has joined the legal defense team of Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash.

Joseph diGenova will join former Chicago U.S. Attorney Dan Webb on the Firtash defense team. DiGenova is a former federal prosecutor in Washington, a cable TV legal commentator and has been a part-time legal adviser to Trump.

He was an outspoken critic of the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign. DiGenova's wife and law firm partner Victoria Toensing has also signed onto the case.

So, of course, Trump supporters will spin like a top like Solomon is doing

[blm]

1. Solomon is a propagandist. Worked for Moonie News.

As soon as I see his name on an article I know it’s RW propaganda dropping.

His style is to write it as if it is a straight news story. Once you are aware that he’s a well-paid propagandist there is no buying what he’s selling.

[Roland99]

3. Saw a video of him re: this. Sounded so contrived

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. Worked for the Sinclair Group too, at 'Circa', which was favoured by Russian twitter bots

Years ago John Solomon was either the lead or one of the lead politics reporters at AP. He had a well-earned reputation as the easiest mark in the business for GOP oppo research hits. It was actually a kind of running gag among Republican campaign operatives. No one will run with a story you’re trying to float? Bring it to John Solomon.
...
At the time, it was never clear to me whether this was more a matter of laziness or ideology. Subsequent events helped clarify things. Later Solomon went to work as the editor-in-chief of The Washington Times. And now he’s running Circa. You may remember that Circa was a startup with an ingenious but ultimately flawed or perhaps premature concept that debuted to much fanfare but ultimately shuttered. The URL and social media feeds of Circa were purchased by Sinclair Broadcasting, a hyper-right-wing media conglomerate, which is now buying up properties to bring its style of post-Fox News propaganda television nationwide. Sinclair put Solomon in charge of Circa and relaunched it as a Buzzfeed for right wing propaganda focused on millennials.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-easy-mark

And when a tool to track what dubious twitter accounts were pushing was launched, it turned out Circa stories were highly favoured: https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029415133#post4

[blm]

6. Yup.

Washington Free Beacon was started by other Moonie alumni. They are scattered throughout the RW networks, and now work to legitimize the propaganda being dropped by Russian trolls.

[Hoyt]

2. We'll see a lot of that from white wingers, and maybe some others.

[ChoppinBroccoli]

7. I Saw It Literally Minutes After The "Transcript" Was Released

One of my friends made a post on Facebook about the transcript and some right-winger immediately responded, practically giddy, about how the transcript completely exonerated Trump, but spelled certain doom for Biden.

I swear, every time I see these half-wits post things, I just think, "What color is the sky in your world?"

[Hawaii Hiker]

4. Electoral vote site commented on him earlier this week

The guy is a complete kook and partsian hack of the worst order..

"Meanwhile, there are also those Trump supporters who are circling the wagons and claiming that the only bad guys (and gals) here are the Democrats. John Solomon of The Hill published a piece on Monday entitled "Let's get real: Democrats were first to enlist Ukraine in US elections." Solomon is a partisan hack who writes laughably bad conspiracy-theory op-eds, and this one is no exception. Still, it speaks to the whataboutism that we can expect to see from some conservative corners of the media. Ditto Sean Hannity's program on Monday, during which he opined that the "mainstream media mob" did the U.S. a big favor by making Ukraine into a major news story".

www.electoral-vote.com